Ashley Anderson

Ashland MFA Alum

visitation

For those who study physics, there are two fundamental properties of energy. The first is that energy is abstract and cannot always be perceived. The second is that energy never really disappears, but that it is simply redistributed.

My dad and I both swore that we saw him. We were both on our way to work. I drove past around three in the morning on my way to my opening shift at the local McDonald’s six miles away. My dad drove past around 4:45 in the morning on his way to McDonald’s for a vanilla iced coffee before driving 45 minutes north to get to work.

I had just begun to see him consistently since Grandma McKnight’s, who was also our next door neighbor, health began to decline rapidly. All of us wondered how much time she had left – days? Weeks? Maybe a few months? With all of Grandma’s health problems, it was hard to tell what disease or condition was causing what ailments, and with her bad eyesight, trying to figure out what caused her declining basic abilities became even harder.

My dad says he’s been seeing him for years now. Never on a regular basis, but occasionally walking out of the sliding glass door between Grandma’s dining room and deck. Always doing the same thing around the same time, as if this were part of his routine.

“Are you sure it’s not just a shadow? Or Judy going out to smoke?” my mom asked us.

I questioned my sightings myself. Was I sure that I saw what I saw? Or was it just a shadow?

“I swear, Jenny,” my dad told her while we were sitting down to dinner one night. “It has to be your father’s ghost. It looks like he’s leaving the house to go to work. He even has the same lunch box!”

That is what I saw. Grandpa McKnight walking out of the sliding glass door, his ghostly metal lunchbox in hand, crossing the deck as if he were about to get in his car and drive off to work. The tall, gangly man that taught me how to dip strawberries in the sugar jar, who knew just what all of my baby and young toddler babbles understood, who I hadn’t seen since I was two and a half, heading off to work as if it were a normal day.

Grandpa McKnight died on September 13, 1989, just thirteen days before my sister Erin was born. He had a brain aneurism while sitting at the dining room table, the same table where he taught me his secret to the perfect sugar-covered strawberry.

From the time that my parents moved into the house they built on what used to be Grandpa’s popcorn field shortly after their first anniversary, until Grandma McKnight’s death on Ash Wednesday 2012, my parents and grandparents were neighbors. Before I was born, this meant family dinners at my grandparents’ farmhouse, my dad and Grandpa sitting at the kitchen table talking about their days in the military, about sports, or about machines. Grandpa would sit there and sip his coffee regardless of the time of day or the weather. “I’ll stick with coffee,” my dad quotes Grandpa as saying. “Water’ll just rust your pipes.”

Grandma never considered another romantic relationship after Grandpa died. Never went on a date, never had a boyfriend, never remarried. Grandpa was her one and only. I admire them for that and, someday, hope I find and have a love like that.

Instead, Grandma spent most of her years as a widow looking after us. When my dad lost his job while I was in preschool, Grandma babysat Erin and I while he put in applications and went to interviews. As we got older, Grandma became our sounding board for our frustrations or a place to go when we needed to get away from whatever it was that was bothering us. There was no doubt that family was important to Grandma, and that opening her home was a way for her to still take care of the people she loved.

I don’t remember when the roles started to reverse, but over time, we became the ones to take care of Grandma. It started with taking Grandma to the grocery store because she saw things that weren’t there when she drove by herself. Taking her to doctor’s appointments. Bringing Grandma her groceries and her mail. Slowly, Grandma needed us more and more until she couldn’t live by herself anymore.

I think what is unusual about all of this is that my dad and I are the only ones who saw Grandpa’s ghost. My dad and I haven’t always exactly been the best of friends. Granted, when you’re growing up, your parents aren’t usually going to be your best friends, but my dad and I have seemed to butt heads for as long as I can remember. Don’t get me wrong. There were times when my dad and I got along with one another, but they usually involved things that my dad liked to do. Watching pro wrestling when I was a toddler. Our jam sessions when I was learning to play the clarinet in middle school, and then when I wanted to learn how to play the guitar in high school.

As I got older, though, our differences of opinion were enough to make the divide between us even larger. His off-handed comments about my weight and my stellar behavior that still wasn’t good enough didn’t help, either. Even now, I wonder if he sees the split as much as I do. Sometimes, I wonder if I am mentally better off being this distanced from him. Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to have enough in common that there were pictures of us smiling and sharing a moment that wasn’t a graduation or family photo op.

At least, that’s what we think we know. If one of the things we know about energy is that it is abstract and cannot always be perceived, then it’s interesting to think of where this thing we know exists goes once one form has finished with it and another form has yet to need it.

The first property of energy doesn’t bother me as much. The fact that energy is abstract is not something that bothers me. As a writer, I think about lots of things in the abstract. It’s part of what I do – think about the abstract things that make us human, that propel us forward, and try to make concrete sense of these things, usually in the form of words on pages.

I am curious about energy’s lack of ability to always be perceived. Are there movements so slight, so finely grained, that it is impossible for us as humans to see them as they happen? Are there ways in which we twitch, shudder, stretch, or grow that just aren’t accessible to our psyches? If that’s true, then I wonder just how possible it is for us to really know ourselves, to really know the world around us.

“How long have you been seeing him?” my mom asked.

“Off and on for years now,” my dad said. “But he’s been around a lot lately since your mom started goin’ downhill.”

I only saw Grandpa’s ghost twice. Both times were while I was on my way to work. Both times Grandpa looked like he was on his way to work, off to the shop where he worked as a tool and die maker. The first time I saw him out of the corner of my eye as I drove past, slamming on the brakes because I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. The second time, I slowed down. I thought about waving. Would he recognize me after twenty-some years? Can a ghost recognize living people after all this time?

Grandpa was a man who worked with his hands. I, on the other hand, worked two jobs while I tried to figure out what to do with my life after graduating from college. Grandpa never finished his engineering degree. One of his math professors required his male students to wear ties to class, and Grandpa refused, instead deciding to drop the class and find a job that didn’t require wearing a tie every day. I sometimes wonder if that was one of the points of connection between Grandpa and my dad that they talked about while sitting at the dining room table.

“Well, maybe he’s checking in on Mom,” my mom replied. “Maybe he wants to know if Mom’s okay.”

My mom and Grandpa were pretty close. Grandpa liked to make candy and, at one time, made his own recipe for chocolate fudge, combining what he liked from several different recipes all into one. He made suckers and nougat clouds called seafoam. He only taught these recipes to my mom who, even though I’m now in my early thirties and have been watching her make Grandpa’s fudge multiple times each holiday season for decades, still has not taught me the secret. “I’ll teach you in your own time,” she says. “It isn’t really that hard.”

My mom was too close to her due date and pregnant with Erin when Grandpa died, and her obstetrician wouldn’t let her travel to West Virginia, where he was and Grandma now is buried with the rest of the McKnight family, for the funeral. Every once in a while, I see my mom’s eyes cloud over when Grandpa and West Virginia come up in conversation. I wonder if my mom still feels guilty about not being able to go.

The thought of Grandpa coming back from wherever it is that one’s soul goes after death to check in on Grandma made my throat tighten. Not out of fear, but for sentimentality’s sake. We talk about love that lasts forever – Grandma and Grandpa were each others’ one and only – but it’s rare to see love that actually lasts forever.

“I think you guys are just seeing things,” Erin said. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”

It turns out that we weren’t the only ones that saw Grandpa’s ghost, nor was the farm the only house that Grandpa visited. One of Grandma’s home health aides pulled me aside at the end of her shift on a day where I sat with Grandma between the health aide leaving and my aunt coming back from running errands or attending to appointments.

“I think you should know this,” she said, lowering her voice and glancing into the living room to make sure Grandma couldn’t hear. “I came around the corner of the living room here to go to the bathroom, and I saw a man standing at the sink.”

“What did he look like?”

The description she gave sounded just like Grandpa. Tall, kind of lanky. “He looked like he was washing his hands. Just staring out the window. And then I think he saw me and he disappeared!”

If the health aide’s description hadn’t rung enough bells to make me think about Grandpa, I probably would’ve asked if she was feeling okay. Maybe offered her a glass of water and a seat. Take some time to collect herself, although being Grandma’s health aide wasn’t the most strenuous of jobs at that time. But then again, maybe seeing a ghost in the house wasn’t all that crazy to begin with.

“It sounds like Grandpa was just stopping by for a visit,” I said nonchalantly. “My dad and I have seen his ghost coming in and out of the house before. It’s nothing new.”

Grandma had been doing rather well that summer. She even made it out of the house to go celebrate Mother’s Day and my college graduation. We took pictures together, Grandma in her wheelchair and I in my regalia.

“Look at all those snazzy ropes you’ve got around your neck!” she said, running her fingers over them as I explained what each set stood for.

This visit from Grandpa was something new, though. No one had seen Grandpa’s ghost in the house before. My aunt thought she heard Grandpa yell at her while she was sleeping on the couch one night when Grandma was in the hospital, but she even admitted that she could’ve been hearing things.

But what was Grandpa doing visiting the house in broad daylight? And why was he washing his hands? Could ghosts wash their hands?

“Well, at least he’s looking out for her,” the health aide said. “In a way, it’s kind of cute.”

A year and a half or so later, the winter of 2010, Grandpa made another visit. It was the last winter Grandma would spend in her and Grandpa’s house. This time, Grandpa’s visit was to my family’s house.

I was sound asleep one night when, from out of nowhere, I heard my name.

“Ashley? Ashley? Ashley?” The voice was definitely that of an older man. His tone was gentle, but just urgent enough that whoever it was wanted my attention.

Normally, I am a very heavy sleeper. During my sophomore year of college, I slept through a fire drill despite the alarm being right outside the door to my room. I regularly sleep through my parents’ neighbors firing off their shotguns and fireworks on July 4th. My boyfriend has tried nudging me awake and I have no memory of feeling his touch. When I am asleep, the outside world usually does not penetrate my slumber. For some reason, this did.

“Huh?” I said as I woke up.

I expected to maybe see my dad in my room. The possible scenarios ran through my head. I overslept my alarm and my boss was calling, wanting to know if I was coming to work that morning. Someone needed to go to the hospital. My car was broken into or, better for me and worse for the perpetrator, stolen out of our driveway.

I looked around my room. Nothing. My door was still shut and I was still very much alone in my bed.

I opened the door and stood at the top of the stairs. Everything in the house was dark and still. My mom was sound asleep on the couch, the same place she had been sleeping since my sophomore year of high school. A dark figure caught my eye, standing at the bottom of the stairs. The shape looked like it was looking up at me.

Our gazes locked for a brief moment, and then the dark figure disappeared. Maybe it was the way the clouds blocked the moonlight that made the figure appear. Or maybe it was Grandpa’s ghost.

That afternoon, I asked my dad about hearing my name in the middle of the night. “Did you try to wake me up last night? Someone was standing at the bottom of the stairs calling my name.”

“Wasn’t me,” my dad said.

I could have been dreaming. Or possibly I just imagined hearing my name when it was really the house groaning or the wind howling. That didn’t explain the figure at the bottom of the stairs, though, or the urgency with which it said my name.

It’s not so much the redistribution that I question. I get that. After all, you see it all the time. The coffee gets cold as it no longer sits on the hot burner. The ice in your cup melts as it is exposed to warm liquids or air. The frown on a friend’s face turning into a smile after you give them a hug. Energy redistributed.

I question, though, where that energy goes when there is no defined recipient of that energy. I guess that the energy could just be absorbed by the universe, tipping some kind of invisible scale one way or the other. Energy could just hang in the air, suspended and resting, until someone comes along to soak up what they need to continue carrying on.

Or maybe, just maybe, this is how energy becomes abstract and not always perceivable. Maybe it is through the transfer of energy that the second principle enables the first, the fact that energy is never lost, always redistributed, is where we become abstract and not always perceivable.

I don’t remember if my dad or I saw Grandpa’s ghost after Grandma McKnight died. I would like to think that ghosts can sense when the space they used to inhabit has changed, and that Grandpa could finally rest knowing that his one and only was now with him. It took Grandma a while, after she spent almost a year haunting the clock on my parents’ microwave and randomly knocking the salt shaker off the top of the stove, but I would like to think that Grandma and Grandpa found one another again.

In some ways, I hope that Grandpa felt that his trips to the farm were no longer necessary, and that he felt confident that we were able to carry on with the living while he carried on with the dead. I wanted him to stop by again, just as a way of saying that things were going to be okay. To let us know that he found Grandma and that, after the dementia and the diabetes and the pneumonia killed her, both of them were safe and whole again.

“I haven’t seen your dad’s ghost in a while,” my dad said one evening toward the end of that spring. He looked over the edge of the newspaper toward my mom, sitting near the edge of his chocolate brown recliner’s footrest in her rocking chair. “Wonder where he’s been?”

“Well, since Mom’s gone, maybe he doesn’t have a reason to come around anymore,” my mom said, keeping her eyes focused on her latest murder mystery novel.

I wanted to be selfish and say that no, we were still here. Would Grandpa’s ghost recognize any of us? Maybe ghosts just know that certain living people were their kin. A sensing of their personal energy redistributed. Maybe they needed to be reminded that time still changes us, even if they remain the same. Even if that energy can never be lost.

I believe that my grandparents are here somewhere. Physically, I know where their bodies are. I was there once, the mountaintop cemetery just across the Ohio River in West Virginia, their side-by-side plots not far from the resting site of one of the Marshall University football players who died in the 1970 plane crash. His headstone is shaped like an oversized marble football.

The day we laid Grandma to rest next to Grandpa was unseasonably warm for February, so much so that we showed up to the cemetery in shirt sleeves. I was suffering from a raging sinus infection and it was all I could do to summon the energy to breathe.

My family and I haven’t heard from Grandma or Grandpa’s ghosts for years now. Grandpa has stopped crossing the deck with his lunchbox to go to work. Grandma has stopped playing with the microwave and pushing the salt shaker off the stove. If we know one thing about energy, it is that energy is abstract and cannot always be perceived. No one did come up with a logical explanation for Grandpa’s ghost heading to work or the dark shadow at the bottom of the stairs that I swear was Grandpa trying to get my attention. My mom did move the microwave one day and discovered that it wasn’t plugged in all the way into the kitchen’s GFI outlet, a possible explanation for why it kept resetting itself. At about the same time, we learned that drilling for oil in the area had caused a larger than normal number of tremors, which may have caused the salt shaker to fall off the stove. I still like to think that Grandma had a role in these events because no one could figure out how the microwave partially unplugged itself or how the salt shaker never broke. Even though we never saw who or what did these things in our kitchen, the energy that became the catalyst never had to be something concrete in order for us to understand our version of what happened.

I sometimes wonder where Grandma and Grandpa’s ghosts have gone if they’re no longer on family ground, in what used to be their house and in what used to be their fields. There are as many beliefs as there are possibilities as to where our souls, our ghosts, go when we die, but the underlying fundamental belief is that the part of us that exists beyond biological functioning goes somewhere. If we know one thing about energy, it is that energy never really disappears, but instead is redistributed. I sometimes wonder if that is how we humans came up with the idea of inheritance, the cultural way of redistributing energy from one generation to another in a way that isn’t necessarily biological, but instead social as a way of reminding us that we are, in fact, connected to those things we can no longer see, but only imagine. The abstract. That which cannot be perceived.

Part of me wants to think that Grandma and Grandpa’s ghosts have finally made it to whatever afterlife exists out there. I imagine Grandpa waiting for Grandma all those years, passing the twenty-three years between their demises as if he had never died. Instead, he worked in the barn. Took care of the orchard. Went to work. Maybe the only reason my dad and I saw his ghost was because of a redistribution of energy. Maybe Grandpa’s ghost was only able to see that redistribution of energy in us, his son-in-law and the only grandchild Grandpa got to meet before he died. Maybe that recognition was why Grandma’s ghostly antics were visible to all of us because we were the family that not only lived close, but that she was probably had the closest relationship with after Grandpa died. Not the abstract. The perceived.

Part of me wants to think that Grandma and Grandpa’s ghosts are still here somewhere, just not where we can sense them. Maybe they’re doing whatever ghosts of grandparents do. Maybe they’re reliving their newlywed days. Maybe they’re revisiting the places they took my mom and her siblings when they were children. Maybe they found a bench somewhere under a nice shady tree that reminds them of the sugar maple tree they planted by the deck on the south side of their house, and they’re simply waiting for whatever is supposed to happen next. Energy redistributed, but never lost.

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ARLENA LOCKARD LIVES IN NORTHEAST OHIO, SPLITTING HER TIME BETWEEN A CAREER AS AN ACADEMIC ADVISOR AT A SMALL COMMUNITY COLLEGE AND EVENINGS SPENT WRITING NARRATIVES ON FEMALE-VOICED HUMOR AND MENTAL ILLNESS. SHE EARNED AN MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING FROM ASHLAND UNIVERSITY IN 2019. HER WORKS HAVE APPEARED IN THE NORTH COAST REVIEW.